His Princess in the Making (11 page)

“Try fourteen years,” she said wearily, her eyes dark, remote. “Unfortunately, this is all I have to give. And you’re the one who said whatever I want from you is mine. Right now I need time-out.”

He didn’t turn or look at her, didn’t speak. He knew her, knew when she had something to say, and silence helped her think.

“You know what life’s like for me. It’s a privilege and honour to be able to help a country rebuild itself. But instead of my biggest daily decisions being what to add to the year-end concert or what to make for dinner, I’m deciding how to split funds that need to go a hundred ways. Instead of thinking about where we’ll go on the weekend, I’m thinking over which destroyed town or abused woman is most worthy of my help. Instead of standing under a spotlight on a small stage in the backblocks of Sydney, I’m standing in front of lines of begging or grateful people, or smiling for the media. On my days off I’m being pressured to decide who to marry—Max, Orakis or one of the Hereditary Lords’ sons that keep showing up wherever I go. Marriage to a commoner is apparently an act of treason for me, unless you magically become acceptable. Even renouncing my position is an act the King can call treason if he wishes.”

He almost burned his hand putting twigs in the fire when she tossed the word “treason” in his lap like that. Giulia was putting herself in danger every time she touched him—and yet still she’d come to him.

Giulia kept talking as if she hadn’t thrown an emotional bomb at him. “I spent most of my life being ordinary, invisible to the world. Now I’m this, and everything I do is under
scrutiny. Every decision affects the lives of others. I’d hoped for a little time-out with you, my best friend and lover, without making yet another life-changing decision. But after a week I’m hurting you because I can’t tell you what you want to hear, because I can’t choose you over everything else. Once I would have been so proud to be your girl, Toby, but you choose now to tell me…” She shrugged, the way she always did when she didn’t know what to say without hurting him. “You say you love me, but is it love when you’re demanding something I don’t have to give you?”

She spoke with a bone-deep weariness that shook him. He’d known all this, had worried over her fatigue and stress, so why hadn’t he seen it, understood her as he always had before?

I gave unconditionally before, because she was always mine unconditionally. I hate not being good enough, and I resent sharing her with the world. I wanted her to turn her back on duty and conscience and the fate of eight-million people, all for me.

He felt small, mean and petty. His aspirations and dreams of personal happiness were life-shaking to one man, not eight million.

So he said, “I’m not asking for anything from you but faith, Giulia—faith in yourself, in your beauty and desirability in my eyes.”

The long silence was broken only by the crackling of the fire and the rustling of the wind in the leaves high above. “As I said, I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

He turned to her. She was sitting jack-knifed, arms around her knees, her face downward to the earth, looking small and lonely. “Still?” he asked huskily.

Her lips sucked in, she gave a short, jerking nod. “I don’t doubt you love me. But the rest—are they words my best friend’s using because I’m losing weight? Are you saying
you want me because you want to save me again? How can I believe you when you only say the words when you feed me, or feel guilty over what you believe you’ve done to me?”

Startled by the depth of her insight, he rocked back on his heels. “What would it take to make you believe me?”

She shrugged, staring at the ground, at the fire, anywhere but at him. “Maybe if I’d had one man interested in me before I became sister to a future king, if someone thought I was pretty before I became Europe’s last single princess, if you’d shown me you wanted me before now…But it’s too late for might-have-beens.” She smiled at him, heartbreaking in her courage and sacrifice, refusing to lay blame.
“C’est la vie.”

He knew this was going to amount to the equivalent of shooting himself in the foot, but it had to be said. “Almost all the single guys at the station have the hots for you, Giulia. Dozens of other men have wanted you. Why do you think big brothers kept coming to pick up the girls from ballet class—for the joy it gave their sisters?”

She frowned, but kept her gaze on the fire. “Nice try, but it’s not going to work. They were all nice to me, but not one asked me out.”

Here we go.
Now he had to pull out that shotgun and aim it right between his eyes. He knew better than to touch her as he made the confession. “The only reason none of them asked you out was because I was always there, acting like your boyfriend—and if that didn’t work I scared them off.”

“What?” She looked up now, her eyes bewildered. “Why would you do something like that?”

Like a condemned man, he saw his life flash in front of his eyes as he searched for a way to make it sound better, gave up and told the truth. “I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone touching you but me. I loved you too damn much, waited years for you. I wasn’t going to lose you to some guy who wouldn’t love and appreciate you like I did. Like I do,” he
finished hoarsely, his heart screaming for his beautiful best friend, his love, to understand.

She was silent for a long time, and he felt every single thud of his heart as he waited for her answer.

“So essentially what you’re telling me is that, while you enjoyed a normal life with flirtations and relationships, had all the fun and made all the mistakes of the normal human, you left me alone for ten years wondering what was so wrong with me that no man even saw me as attractive?” she asked, her tone almost conversational. “That’s your idea of loving me?”

He sat on the blanket as his legs gave way. She’d just shown him the last ten years through her eyes.

After saving her life from a disease that was all based on self-image, he’d left her alone, feeling ugly and unwanted, because he hadn’t spoken. Though he’d dated, even slept with other women when he’d lost hope with her, he’d stopped any man coming near her because she was
his,
because he’d burned with near-insane jealousy at the thought of any other man touching her. While she’d gone through the torment of knowing where he was and what he was doing with those other women, he hadn’t been able to put himself through the same.

How she’d remained strong enough to not fall into anorexic patterns all these years, he had no idea. How she was surviving royal life without running, screaming back to Australia was still a mystery to him.

The King had been right about her. Max had seen everything in her that he’d been blind to. The real woman beneath the one he’d chosen to see was strong, wise and courageous, far more than he’d ever been during any fire.

Did he know her at all?

She sat there, watching him with no accusation in her eyes. She knew him, knew he was accusing himself enough for them both.

“There’s nothing I can say,” he mumbled eventually.

“No,” she agreed, still impassive.

“They were real, Giulia. Those guys, the ones at the station. Hell, Sean and Jack and Tim always fought over who you’d smiled at the most when you came to visit—at least until I was around,” he told her, frantic to find a way to fix his latest mistake with her. “Remember they all came to the local production of
Giselle,
and you thought it was to laugh at me being Loys? They came to see you. Ask Charlie if you can’t believe me,” he added, knowing at last that he hadn’t earned her trust after all these years.

Throwing out the anorexic rulebook had saved her ten years ago. But, smug, thinking he knew her better than anyone, he’d thrown out the more commonsense advice such as letting Giulia fly when she was ready, allowing her to find her own life. No book knew what Giulia needed—he did.

But he now saw the truth: it had never been about what
she’d
needed. He’d done it to keep her with him because he needed her, because he was scared stupid that, if he let some other man near her, she might need them more.

He felt sick, realising the King and Max had been right. He’d never treated Giulia with the respect and dignity of an adult free to make her own choices.

“Thank you,” she said after a while, with a politeness that put miles of distance between them. “It was kind of you to tell me that.”

“But you don’t believe it, do you?”

She opened her mouth and closed it. She didn’t have to answer.

“We should go back in. I have a big day tomorrow, and so do you,” he said, cursing a brain so scrambled he knew anything he said now would make it worse.

She nodded, and started putting food in the rucksack. “Thank you for my lovely picnic, Toby. It was, um, nice to relax after a hard day.”

And he’d blown it again, putting his needs before hers, and those of millions of others who needed her.

He couldn’t tell her about the real source of his so-called death threats now. How would it change her mind when he was only “time-out” to her? And no wonder at that. He’d been her first kiss, the kiss she should have had at sixteen. He’d had the normal rounds of first kisses and sweet, innocent dates, but he’d denied them to her.

He’d even ruined this time every woman ought to be able to treasure by bringing shame on their assignations, and by his demands that she put him first. And even now, he’d demanded she overcome the pain he’d inflicted on her, change the ruin of her self-esteem, and see how much he loved her anyway.

He’d spent years trying to love the way Giulia did—the way all the Costas did, giving without expectation—and still he was a scrapping, grabbing Winder, wanting more than he had, never able to let go of what he saw as his right, his due.

As they headed back to the cave, he said what he had to. “I think you should date.” Every word came out gravelly, as if spoken through broken glass. “Max is a good guy. Some of the Lords’ sons are decent too—and it’s obvious a few of them really like you.” He named the men he thought had a chance of making themselves worthy of her, even though a streak of pain went through his left side, as if his heart squeezed out its protest in blood.

After hearing him out, she said quietly, “You might be right, but I’m not ready for it yet.” And though she smiled at him, he knew she meant:
They don’t want me…

He felt like Judas, betraying her with his kiss.

“Why don’t you hit me?” he demanded, drowning under the weight of her sweetness, the regal bearing that was born in her. From little Lia, holding her hand out to him saying, “Come and live with us,” to the princess walking beside him in her jeans and pullover, she’d always been so high above
him, he didn’t deserve even to look at her. “You deserve to take a swing at me for being so damned selfish all those years.”

She lifted one shoulder. “You were anything but selfish, Toby—and it wouldn’t change those years anyway. They’ll still exist.”

In other words,
the damage is done and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.

In the cave, she turned to him, her lovely, sleepy eyes shimmering with sadness and regret and half a lifetime of trusting love shattered that she was trying so hard to hide for his sake. “Don’t blame yourself, Toby. You saved my life. I’ve never doubted how much you love me. And if I’d spoken, tried again…”

“Don’t try to absolve me, Giulia, I couldn’t stand it,” he said hoarsely. And with the last word, he plunged into a secret passage as dark as his soul at this moment.

A week later

T
OBY
had known it was only a matter of time before Orakis made a blunder. All he’d had to do was wait for the spoiled lord’s anger to build high enough.

Two nights ago Giulia had tired of Orakis’s calls, extolling his own virtues. Politely, but with a firmness that told everyone listening in that he had no hope of winning her, she’d said she was too busy at present to take his daily calls. No, she wouldn’t have a private dinner with him either.

Giulia had shuddered when she’d told him about it later, as she recounted listening to the icy silence before Orakis had hung up the phone. But Toby felt the ripple of inner excitement. It was time.

After Giulia had left the small town where she’d opened a new refuge Toby had waited two miles down the road with a fully equipped truck, his security contingent and a few retired firefighters.

It was almost two hours later before the explosion came, but it looked like Chinese New Year, a burst of light and colour shooting up into the afternoon sky.

The team swung into action. “Nobody’s going to die today,”
he told the men in grim promise. “We fight back—not dirty, but
clever.
Stick to the plan.”

They all nodded. They knew what he wanted them to do, and were ready to meet resistance if necessary. They shoved on their masks and ran in.

And Toby knew there wouldn’t be a fight. The two men sent to set the fire were trapped beneath a beam that had crashed down on them with the first explosion, and were screaming for help.

He sent two experienced men in to check the rest of the place. Then he ran into the back of the building where the walls were beginning to topple, the roof sliding sideways.

The beam that had fallen on them was a supporting one. These two were idiots, not even knowing enough to get out before the explosion. Grimly he shoved a massive broken shard of the beam under the stairs to keep them up until his men cleared the building, and went to work to pull out Dumb and Dumber. He had two, three minutes at the most, before the fire got too close and these dopes would die.

“Hang on, I’ll get you out,” he yelled in English as he used a battery-powered chainsaw to break up the thick slab of wood, so there’d be no sparks. He hoped it wasn’t yet common knowledge that the Prince’s old friend spoke Hellenican Greek like a native.

“Lord Orakis will be furious with us for this,” one of them muttered to the other, in such breathless pain Toby knew he had at least one crushed rib. “But he did tell us to break this beam first!”

Toby tossed aside half the beam. “I won’t be long now,” he said in English.

“What if they don’t get us out before the accelerant in the cellar explodes?” the other panted, ignoring Toby completely. “It can’t be long now.”

Toby tossed aside the second half of the beam. The young guys in his team were working on shoving pieces of steel to
keep things up for now. “I’m just about done, so I’ll have you out in time, but thank you for the information,” he said politely in their language, and Orakis’s men gasped.

He checked them for spinal injury, cleared them for movement and carried one out, calling to one of the guys to take the other. Both men were totally silent now, probably weighing up their options to avoid prison time.

Toby and the other firefighter handed Orakis’s men to the paramedics. “Request police surveillance in the hospital for these two. They’re the arsonists. Search them—they may also have evidence that the fire was ordered by Lord Orakis,” he said briefly and, to the beat of cheering townspeople, he ran back in to find the accelerant and other traces of evidence before the building collapsed.

Checking the stairs for signs of hazardous materials before he got the accelerant out, he heard a strained voice from below. “Toby. Toby Winder…”

Toby blinked and yelled,
“Max?”

Lia walked past liveried servants, holding the doors open for her, after returning from an afternoon tea for charity. Last night had been a state dinner.

She sighed in relief. She actually had tomorrow off, and she was planning to do some serious sleeping in until Charlie and Jazmine called for their updates.

The King knew about the calls; everyone did. Everyone listened in, wanting to see how things were going.

But, though she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to date. Max was handsome, suave and charming, with a heart as untouched by her as hers was by him. They’d always be friends, but nothing more. Lately she’d had some calls from Georgiou, the son of the Earl of Conroi. He was young and eager, and good-looking in a dark, intense way, and looked at her with restrained hunger. Toby was right—Georgiou did really like
her—but all she wanted to do was pat him on the head. He seemed so
young.

She headed for her room, intending to ask her maid for a peppermint tea. All the rich cakes and biscuits at the afternoon tea didn’t sit well in her stomach.

A commotion from the eastern wing made her frown. There were people striding back and forth, and people in white coats snapping orders. She looked through the balconies to the front gate; a mass of headlights and flashing lights told her the press was here in force.

“What’s going on?” she asked her security detail, who followed her in silence. When the man and woman refused to answer, she snapped, sick to death of everyone hiding things from her. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask the press outside for news.”

The woman’s jaw tightened, but the man clearly hesitated. She pressed her advantage. “I’m sure King Angelis will be very glad of your discretion when I walk out to the gate and ask one of the press while the cameras are still rolling.”

The woman still didn’t answer, so she turned to the man. He gave a short nod. “Mr Winder was injured in a fire at one of your refuges, Your Highness.”

“Toby,”
Lia gasped, turned and ran down the hall.

Several royal staff blocked the way. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but nobody is to enter Mr Winder’s room but medical staff.”

At that, the fury, a low-burning match in her heart, turned to a blaze. She turned to her male security-detail. “Find me an unopened jar of honey, an unopened bottle of pure aloe-juice, Vaseline gauze, bandages, and tape instead of butterfly clips. Now!”

The man, accustomed to the voice of command, turned and ran.

She headed straight for the King’s sitting room. “Let me
past,” she snapped to the servants at the doors of King Angelis’s sitting room.

She opened the door to the King’s day room without waiting for them to announce her. The King looked up from the papers he was reading, seeming unperturbed by her entrance. “I gather you’ve discovered the boy’s injury. Sit down, Giulia, and we’ll talk.”

Lia remained standing. “I want you to remove the orders not to let me into Toby’s room, Your Majesty. I know how to treat him.”

The gap between them was evident in the way she’d called him “Your Majesty,” yet the King’s face didn’t harden. “You have to be reasonable, child. How would it look if you—?”

“I don’t care how it looks,” she interrupted brutally. “Make your choice, sire.”

“You won’t call me Theo Angelis now?” His voice and face were sad, old.

Her heart gave an unwilling tug, but she repressed it. He was using her soft heart to get his way. “I can’t love a man forcing me into something that revolts me. Papou would never have hurt me that way.”

“No doubt,” the King sneered. “If you want to see your lover, why don’t you sneak in via the secret passage, as you’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks?”

She maintained her stance in the face of his anger. “I won’t hide our friendship—and I won’t use my royal privilege to keep my dearest friend as my secret lover.”

A wave of colour stained the old man’s face. His jaw jutted.

“I will go to Toby openly to treat his wounds. I don’t care if I have to create a scene or go through the press to do it.”

The King’s jaw worked for a moment. “Fine, put him in danger. It suits me.” He picked up the phone and snapped the order.

Lia turned and walked out without another word. She
strode up the stairs, turned right and went into Toby’s wing. The security detail parted this time.

Toby was leaning back on a gurney brought in as medical staff worked on him. He was pale; his shoulder and hands were draped with sterile padding.

“Out,” she snapped at the medical staff, crossing the room to him.

Toby’s eyes opened and he grinned, lifting his brows at her peremptory tone. “Come in, Your Highness.”

The medical staff bowed as they protested, but she’d had it with listening to everyone else. “Don’t patronise me. I’ve been a princess for four months and a fireman’s sister for ten years. I have my advanced First Aid, updated every year, and an EMT certificate. I’ve probably treated almost as many burn injuries on my brother, Toby and other members of his station as you have patients in hospitals.” She moved to the trolley. “Good, Vaseline gauze and bandages. Don’t give him straight penicillin, he’s allergic, and he reacts badly to the antibiotic cream and glucose-based antiseptic. He can only take a broad-based oral antibiotic, which is useless in this case, unless he becomes infected—which he won’t. He never does with my treatment. Now please, everyone, out before someone gives him staph. Leave the trolley.”

Toby grinned again once the door closed behind the multitudes. “Did you mean to turn me on with that tirade? You’re as sexy as sin when you’re giving everyone hell for my sake.”

“I doubt the King agreed when he tried to lock me out of here.” Still feeling the hot blush on her cheeks, she laughed and, after braiding her hair back and washing her hands thoroughly, began opening packets. “When necessity drives, right?”

“Obviously you felt the necessity, or you wouldn’t be starting World War Three for my sake. Think the King will
come in, all guns blazing, to see if I can seduce you without my hands?”

Though he was still laughing, she heard the deep thread of pain beneath. “Be quiet and let me see your hands. One of the staff will be back with the aloe and honey soon.” Once she had gloves on, she lifted the sterile covers and inspected his shoulder beneath one of the plastic-backed sterile sheets. “There are some second-degree burns here.” She had to work fast or he’d need those antibiotics by morning. “Did they finish cleaning all the wounds?”

He closed his eyes. “Apart from a few splinters they found in my hands.”

She checked them out. “A
few
splinters? There’s over two-dozen here.” She took the first six ampoules of saline and ran them under hot water. Water just cooler than lukewarm, she’d learned, helped bring the splinters to the surface on burned skin, and didn’t shock the damaged flesh as much. “So what did you do to get this many?” she asked when she returned with a calmness she’d never really felt in treating Charlie or Toby—but keeping serene helped them to relax.

“Fallen beam on two of Orakis’s goons. I couldn’t get it off them with the gloves on. I burned my shoulder while I was pulling Max out—and my hands burned getting the barrel of flame-accelerant out before it exploded. Then the place started collapsing, and…” He shrugged, and she nodded. She knew the story; she’d heard similar tales over and over in the past ten years.

“Max was there?” she asked, burning with curiosity. “Why? Is he all right?”

“He has concussion, some blurred vision. Luckily he regained consciousness in time to call to me.” Toby’s face showed no expression. “He was there because, like me, he suspected Orakis would torch the place. He saw the goons place the accelerant in the cellar, and they hit him and tied him
up. When they tried to run, the supporting beam went, trapping them.”

“Ah.” She grinned at him. “I see I’ve been kept out of the loop with your most recent rounds of dangerous antics, dear friend. If you want these splinters removed with as few ouches as possible, I suggest you expound the tale.”

He grinned; his eyes were so warm she wanted to swim in them. “I think I’ve done it, Giulia. I found proof that Orakis is behind the fire attacks on the buildings we’ve set up for our projects in Hellenia—yours, mine and Charlie’s. I found a barrel full of top-grade accelerant set with a timer in the cellar beside Max. And believe it or not, Orakis’s men kept the written instructions on them. The police have them in custody. They talked about Orakis knowing of the arson before they realised I could speak Hellenican. I told the police the King would have their names and the station in question, in case of any ‘accidental’ escapes.”

Lia blinked. He’d said “I’ve done it” as though he’d been seeking a way to bring Orakis down for a while.

Then her heart filled and overflowed. Of course he had; he wouldn’t allow her life to be dominated by that man. Toby had devoted so many years to her health and happiness, she was amazed she hadn’t realised before that he’d do this—risking his life to free her from any harm or threat was just what he did.

She bent and kissed his cheek, aching to touch him, not as friend or would-be nurse, but as a lover. “Thank you, Toby, thank you.”

But he frowned. “Don’t thank me. I did what I had to do.”

“For me,” she said softly, kissing him full on the lips this time, lingering until his mouth softened and he kissed her back. “Now it’s my turn to help you.”

“How can you still want to kiss me after everything I’ve done to you?” he murmured, filled with self-recrimination. “How can you forgive me for hurting you all those years?”

“Ah, Toby,” she whispered, and the aching intensified to kiss him again. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me—and don’t you know I’d forgive you anything?”

His eyes darkened but, as he was about to speak, a knock came on the door. She called out, her voice wobbly, “Come in.”

Her Secret Service man came in with a large paper bag.

She checked out the contents and smiled. “I can’t believe you actually found Manuka honey, Rob. It’s the purest honey there is, and full of natural antibiotics.”